Labor & Employment Law

Flight Attendants to Challenge Delta Vote

By James Parks

The Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) plan to challenge the vote announced today in which flight attendants at Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines rejected union representation by a margin of fewer than 300 votes out of a total of more than 18,000 ballots cast.

In a statement, AFA-CWA President Patricia Friend said:

In the next few days, we will be submitting interference charges against Delta management for their illegal and unfair methods to sway the vote. We will ask the National Mediation Board to defend the Delta flight attendants? right to an election free of interference.

As in past campaigns, Delta ran an anti-union drive with fear and misinformation as the focus. Delta?s 2008 merger with Northwest brought in some 7,000 attendants who are already union members.

This was the first election run under the National Mediation Board?s new democratic election rules that allow a majority of votes cast to decide the outcome. Under the old rules, if you did not vote, it was counted as a “No.”

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on November 03, 2010 (boomark / email).